Edyta Kociubińska
Cahiers ERTA, Numéro 15 La (r)évolution, 2018, pp. 127-138
https://doi.org/10.4467/23538953CE.18.017.9132The paper aims to show a dandy as a performer who acts as if he was guided by a kind of a revolutionary manifesto, which we attempt to recreate by referring to essays of Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, Charles Baudelaire, Jules Lemaître or Oscar Wilde. The dandy’s rebellion against the outside world consists in the creation of his own personality, as well as in the rejection of the rudimentary uniformity and the duty of utility. He seeks to give his life an exceptional character, his unique goal is to serve the highest value: the Beauty. His responsibility is to impress his audience and not to let himself be amazed, as he cannot disclose his feelings and he has to adopt an impenetrable attitude, guided by the constant urge of staging his life, as a form of protection against the surrounding world, malevolent and rude.
Edyta Kociubińska
Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 21, Issue 4, Volume 21 (2021), pp. 323-329
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.21.032.14434The article discusses the book The Free Shooters of Thought. On Some Romantic and Post-Romantic Figures of Mind by Agnieszka Kocik. This publication proposes to trace the dynamics in the development of the character of an eccentric in the 19th century literature, based on an analysis of works by, among others, Balzac, Sztyrmer, Nerval, Champfleury, Verne, Howard. The author distinguishes three stages in modernisation of fiction, pointing to its sources in the evolution of scientific and parascientific theories and ideas, without forgetting the historical upheavals which inevitably brought about important socio-political, cultural and literary changes.